A common package for shipping, handling and selling a group of articles such as 12 oz. beverage cans is a shallow corrugated pasteboard tray. The pasteboard material of such trays is about 1/16 of an inch in thickness. Generally the trays have sidewalls which are no higher than the middle of the cans and for a standard 12 oz. beverage can that sidewall height would be about 2 and 1/2 inches. For a tray of 24 cans the tray is rectangular and about 16 inches long and 10 and 1/2 inches wide. A tray of 24 (12 oz.) beverage cans weighs a rather substantial 22 pounds. If the cans are placed in the tray without any binding between the cans which might tie the cans together in some way, the tray is difficult to carry by a person. That is of course, because of the weight of the cans, the minimum of support provided by the thin pasteboard, and the single layer side-by-side rectangular array of the 24 cans. If a person carrys the tray with his hands at the opposite end bottom wall portions, the tray tends to bend or fold downward about a transverse central axis. The relatively low sidewalls then tend to crease outwardly at the longitudinal centers thereof, and the cylindrical cans slide over one another at their upper ends and move sidewise out of the rectangular array with the cans along sidewalls tending to fall from the tray. A better way for the person to cradle or carry such a tray is to hold it at the opposite side central bottom wall portions. There is then a tendency for the tray to bend or fold downward about a longitudinal central axis. Because the transverse dimension of the tray is substantially less than the longitudinal dimension the tray may not bend enough to lose cans from the ends of the tray.
There are a number of prior art solutions to the described problem of carrying such trays. Probably the most common solution is to wrap the tray with a shrink film. Another solution is to make the tray of a material that has a stiffness sufficient to support the array without bending as the tray is carried. Another solution is to raise the height of the side and end walls of the tray to the top, or almost to the top, of the cans to give the side and end walls further rigidity against bending or creasing out of their vertical planes and to hold loose cans within the tray.